GOVERNMENT proposals to overhaul the planning system could lead to thousands more homes being built in Oxfordshire than currently planned, and exclude people from decisions about building on their doorstep.

Those are some of the warnings issued by Oxfordshire residents, concerned by the Government's plans to shake up housebuilding in England.

At the start of August, the Government set out its stall for a new planning system in England, reasoning that the current way in which councils plan where homes, schools, hospitals and offices can be built within their areas is too slow.

Now Oxfordshire campaigners and politicians have started to prepare their responses to a Government consultation on these plans, set out in a document called 'Planning for the future'.

One group of north Oxfordshire residents have said they are worried the plans could lead to thousands of new homes spoiling rural areas of the county, because of new housebuilding targets.

And another group has said the reforms 'will leave people without a voice'.

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In August, the Government said it wanted to replaced the 'outdated and ineffective' planning system which has existed since 1947, with a new one.

Councils currently draw up Local Plans for their areas, setting out specific sites for where homes, offices, or public buildings like schools and hospitals can be built.

Once these plans are published, councils then consider planning applications to build on the sites they have set out.

But Local Plans can take as many as seven years to finish, and the government has said this is too long.

Instead, it wants councils to adopt a system called 'zoning' where they choose areas for new development that do not need approval for building, areas which are already built upon and can be 'renewed', and areas which should be protected because they are home to wildlife or farmland.

There are also plans to centralise and streamline behind the scenes work, so Local Plans can be rolled out in 30 months and so that a digital map of all new building projects can be created.

At the same time, it is proposing a new top-down housing target of 300,000 homes a year across England, up from current guidelines of 270,000 a year.

It would also remove the need for councils to speak to one another to agree housing targets.

In Oxfordshire, for example, the different district councils have agreed to help build new homes for the growing population of people who want to work and live in commuting distance of Oxford.

The new target could mean that more than 4,700 homes need to be built in the county each year, up from 3,100, according to planning analysts Lichfields.

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Campaigners from the Cherwell Development Watch Alliance, a group of residents from northern Oxfordshire, are concerned that the new housing target, which could be rolled out ahead of the full overhaul, would mean more homes than already planned could be built in rural areas of Oxfordshire.

In a letter to district councillors in Cherwell, CDWA said: "These houses are for the whole of Cherwell. You will not be able to put them all in the Green Belt. They will be coming to all the communities that you represent."

And it added a warning that 'electors will remember' the predicted housing boom at the ballot box.

Meanwhile a group of Oxfordshire experts in planning and the environment experts called POETS (Planning Oxfordshire's Environment and Transport Sustainably) has shared its thoughts with the government on the new system.

Chris Cousins of POETS said: “One of the key features of planning in this country has been the fact that there is local involvement and decision making. These proposals will undermine that.

“There is already a large amount of development that can take place without the need for planning permission under changes that the government has recently introduced. This includes the conversion of offices to housing, which the government’s own advisors have criticised for creating the slums of tomorrow. The white paper’s proposals would go even further in giving developers free rein.”

Oxford City Council is also preparing to give its opinions on the Government white paper.

Ahead of this, its cabinet member for planning and housing delivery, Alex Hollingsworth, said: "“The basis for these so-called ‘reforms’ is the claim that the planning system holds up development; this is untrue.

"Across the country more than one million homes with planning permission have not been built. The failure to build new housing is not a result of the planning system, but of market failure and above all the failure by the Government to invest in social housing."

He added: “The planning system is a careful balance between different interests; these proposals tip that balance decisively in favour of already powerful corporate interests, and away from local communities.”

And its Lib Dem opposition leader Andrew Gant said the plans were merely an attempt to ‘centralise power with Dominic Cummings and number 10.’

He added: “The current system has not delivered what Oxford needs, but that’s the fault of the authorities in charge of implementing it, not the system itself.”

MHCLG was contacted for comment.